A wild story: How China fell for NZ sea cucumbers
James Parfitt's award-winning export business is 'the ultimate barbecue conversation starter'.
Kia ora and welcome to Stocktake, created in partnership with Kiwibank.
My thanks to Reweti for taking over Stocktake last week. I loved being able to read an issue purely for my own enjoyment. Turns out it’s pretty good! While I was away I caught wind of something I had to find out more about: sea cucumbers. Yes, New Zealand-grown sea cucumbers are a sought after delicacy. For more, read on…
-Chris Schulz, business editor
‘It can be cooked in hundreds of different ways’
James Parfitt has stories. There’s the one about the chilly bin full of sea cucumbers that he took to China in 2009, earning him some strange looks in airports. “I’ve got plenty [of yarns] about border agents,” says Parfitt, the founder and CEO of Wild Catch, a small South Island fisheries company exporting mainly to China. Ever since he started his company, those stories haven’t stopped. “Taking things up to trade fairs, that’s when things get a bit dicey,” he says, launching into a story that involves undercover travel. “I had to cross a few checkpoints quite covertly,” he admits.
Parfitt’s adventures with tubs of his bêche-de-mer – the official title of his New Zealand-grown sea cucumbers, also sometimes known by the less delicious-sounding name “sea slugs” – make Parfitt a popular person to chat to at gatherings. “It’s the ultimate barbecue conversation starter speaking to randoms,” he says. They ask him: what are sea cucumbers? And, how did he end up catching them in Aotearoa, drying them, sending them to China, and turning his operation into a profitable and award-winning business – a story he’s yet to discuss with a reporter before now? “It’s pretty weird,” Parfitt admits.
They’re all questions I wanted to ask as well. So, this past Friday, I gave him a call and asked him to explain everything. “I only have 10% battery,” Parfitt warned. Luckily, it was just enough time for him to tell me how, living in China in the late 2000s, he wanted to create a business that would connect him to his two favourite countries, China and Aotearoa. He befriended a sea cucumber expert who told him how popular the seafood delicacy is there. Parfitt remembered: “We have those in New Zealand. You see them out snorkelling. I used to see them around the Marlborough Sounds.”
So he came home, went diving and rounded some up. A sea slug is a living sea creature that likes to stick to rocks around the South Island. “It’s a little slug-like creature with soft spikes protruding from its surface,” says Parfitt. “It’s in the same family as kina, sea urchins and starfish.” In New Zealand, they’re a golden colour, making them even more sought after. After they’re harvested, by hand, Parfitt sends them to his Christchurch factory for drying and packaging. All of this takes time, which is why they’re so expensive. Right now, Wild Catch charges about $4.50 for each dried sea cucumber, while overseas variants can be as little as $1.
Price doesn’t seem to matter, because China is going crazy for Wild Catch’s products. After that first haul, Parfitt realised his sea cucumbers rated extremely well with customers. Overseas competitors farm sea cucumbers in less than ideal conditions, Parfitt says, using antibiotics, hormones and filthy water. Parfitt’s sea cucumbers are caught wild and, he says, sustainably. “We got some pretty good results and feedback and the texture was very similar to the really highly prized Japanese species – only ours were wild and a golden colour,” he says.
Once they make it to tables in China, sea cucumbers are eaten as a superfood. “Big chunks of populations will have one a day all through winter to ward off sickness and keep healthy,” says Parfitt. They can be cooked in many ways. “They carry the flavour of whatever they’re cooked in. At a banquet you might get served one on a plate by itself with minimal garnish or it might be in a big stirfry or a soup. It can be cooked in hundreds of different ways.” Some also consider it to be an aphrodisiac, but Parfitt says “that’s not something I can vouch for”.
What he can confirm is how well Wild Catch is doing. Despite a small slump when Covid hit, he’s back to exporting nearly a million sea cucumbers a year. Parfitt’s hoping to grow that market and has big ambitions, aiming to make his sea cucumbers the biggest seafood exported out of New Zealand. He’s got a long way to go: the Ministry of Primary Industries estimates exports top $1.5 billion a year, including lobster, mussels, squid and salmon. Parfitt admits it’s a competitive industry, which is one of the reasons he’s been laying low, not wanting to draw attention to his “niche”.
But awareness is growing. Parfitt has several awards to show for his business efforts, including an NZTE award for trade between New Zealand and China, and a recent nomination in the EY New Zealand entrepreneur of the year awards. He knows he can’t keep his business secret much longer, because the sea cucumber market is growing. He promises to send me a list of Auckland restaurants cooking with Wild Catch’s sea cucumbers, and I promise to try them. He remains a fan himself. “I love them,” he says. “They’re such a clean-tasting food. They’re not fishy at all … it’s a really healthy food that makes you feel alive.”
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Cruises are back, baby
The cruise ship industry was decimated during Covid and it’s no wonder. If you’ve seen that hellish documentary The Last Cruise you’ll never want to step foot on board a boat again. But, as Covid subsides, cruises are making a comeback, and many customers – mostly old, retired, rich, white ones – are very happy about that. I got to spend three nights aboard the Reef Endeavour in Fiji recently to find out what they’re like. The answer? Awkward, weird, delightful, and vibe-changing, in equal measure.
The golden age of NZ mags
Journalist and writer Finlay Macdonald has enjoyed a lengthy career across Aotearoa print and television, and he tells Duncan Greive about all of it in the latest episode of The Fold. I particularly loved hearing the editor of The Conversation talk about his time editing The Listener. “It was a kind of golden age,” he tells Greive. “I don’t think I’d ever really want to go back.” Listen to their chat here.
What Adrian Orr learned at Jackson Hole
The Reserve Bank Governor has returned from the hottest and most important annual get-together of central bankers at Jackson Hole in Wyoming. He found a bunch of Governors hunkered down and under attack because inflation blew past their targets this year. He talks exclusively to Bernard Hickey in the latest episode of When the Facts Change about what has changed permanently in the workings of the global economy that is slowing growth and increasing inflation, and why we should care here in Aotearoa.
A handful of quick links…
A plan to levy GST on Uber and AirBnB bookings is being hailed as a world first. According to Stuff, it could raise an extra $100 million a year in tax, and one tax expert says “everyone will be watching … we’re setting the pace here”.
Toast Electric, a not-for-profit power company, sounds like it has its heart in the right place. RNZ reports the company will take profits from regular customers and use them to subsidise bills for those who struggle to pay.
Nearly 70% of Lotto shop sales are in the poorest parts of the community, according to this excellent series from RNZ’s Guyon Espiner. He’s promising more revelations about state-sanctioned gambling outfit across the week.
Award winning ice cream maker and successful exporter Marcus Moore, founder of Auckland based ice cream firm Much Moore Ice Cream, talks (paywalled) navigating inflationary pressures, business growth and why a bricks and mortar ice cream bar is in the firm's future plans.
Finally, I’m obsessed about this artwork that a game designer made using AI that won $300 in the Colorado State Fair Fine Arts Competition and caused an absolute outcry by those saying it shouldn’t be allowed. Let the bots make art!
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